Census: City lags in education

Updated 11:07 pm, Wednesday, September 21, 2011

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Melissa Phillip : CHRONICLE
TOUGH TIME: Nurse's aide Enis Domio, 34, has looked for work in Houston since November. With her unemployment benefits about to run out, she says, "I'm really getting discouraged."

Melissa Phillip : CHRONICLE
TOUGH TIME: Nurse's aide Enis Domio, 34, has looked for work in Houston since November. With her unemployment benefits about to run out, she says, "I'm really getting discouraged."

Photo: Melissa Phillip

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Census: City lags in education

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Houston faces sharp divisions over education and opportunity, according to Census data released today.

More than one in four adults - and more than 40 percent of Hispanics - don't have a high school diploma. That's higher than the state average, and far higher than the national average of 14.4 percent.

On the other hand, more than 28 percent of Houston residents have at least a bachelor's degree, slightly higher than the national average and almost 3 percent higher than state figures.

Data from the Census Bureau's 2010 American Community Survey offers a mixed assessment of life in Texas: People here were more likely to have a job than those in most other states, and Houstonians were even more likely to be working. But even in Texas, the employment rate dropped during each of the past three years.

Incomes are down, too, although less so than in most other states. Poverty rates are rising, to 17.9 percent in Texas and 22.8 percent in Houston.

The education numbers drew attention to a long-simmering issue.

"An alarm should be going off for our leaders and all of our citizens," said Robert Sanborn, president and CEO of Children at Risk.

The American Community Survey figures are for adults 25 and older, but Sanborn said high numbers of students continue to leave school without graduating - 34 percent of students in Harris County, a figure he said climbs to 43 percent in the Houston Independent School District.

"Those are children and young adults that … will never earn enough to move into the middle class," he said.

Gov. Rick Perry's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination - based in part on his stewardship of the Texas economy - ensures that the state's numbers will be scrutinized.

The median household income in Texas was $48,615, compared with the U.S. median of $50,046. Just 25.9 percent of Texans had a bachelor's degree or higher, while 28.1 percent of all U.S. residents did.

Perry spokesman Josh Havens said his office has not seen the data but released a statement agreeing that students must be prepared "for an increasingly competitive 21st century."

He said higher education enrollment in the state has increased 47 percent since Perry took office.

Similar trends

Enis Domio didn't need to see the statistics to know it's a bad time to be looking for a job. The 34-year-old has been out of work for almost a year.

"I'm really getting discouraged," she said of her search for a position as a certified nursing assistant.

Today's data was released amid a flurry of other reports on how Americans have fared since the recession's official end.

The numbers vary, mainly because of differences in how the data is collected, but the trends are the same.

The Census Bureau last week reported the poverty rate was at its highest since 1993, at 15.1 percent. (It is 15.3 percent in the American Community Survey.)

No guarantees

The American Community Survey data indicates poverty is linked to education. Hispanics are less-educated than Anglos, Asians and African-Americans - just 11.5 percent of Hispanic adults in Texas had a bachelor's degree or higher.

Across the state, 29.1 percent of people 25 and older without a high school diploma were at or below the poverty level, compared with 3.9 percent of those with at least a bachelor's degree.

William Flores, president of the University of Houston-Downtown, notes that many of the city's highest-paid workers - at the Texas Medical Center, NASA and elsewhere - came from other states and countries to take jobs that local residents aren't qualified to fill.

"We just have not done that well in selling the importance of graduation from high school and college," Flores said.

UH-Downtown is one of eight Texas universities working to change that, reaching out to the 22 percent of adult Texans who attended college but did not graduate and trying to get them to re-enroll.

Still, experts know an education doesn't guarantee a job.

"I've had individuals call saying, 'Last week I was making $125,000, and I got called in. They took my car away, they took my credit card away,' " said Carole Little, president and CEO of Northwest Assistance Ministries.

But no education almost ensures a struggle.

LaCorey Johnson had a string of minimum-wage jobs before and after she finished school in 2010.

Now 21, she is unemployed and looking for something better.

"Minimum wage, $7.25, that's not enough to pay my bills," she said.

Future generations

State Demographer Lloyd Potter said the mixed messages in the new data have implications for the state's quality of life.

Still, he sounds guardedly optimistic.

Many of those without a high school diploma are immigrants, he noted.

Many have children in school now, and they are more likely to graduate, Potter said.

"The graduation rate may be lower than children of non-immigrants, but it certainly will be higher than their parents," he said.

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